I swear not to screw around on the Irish Constitution

Good folk of the world who want to make Éire their full-time home will soon have to swear an Oath of Fidelity to the nation. The exact nature of this newfound fealty isn’t specified in Alan Shatter’s plans, though there’s yabbering aplenty about an eventual ‘citizen test’ to see if non-natives can fit in with our indigenous way of strife. Before I laugh my knickers off or launch into a jeremiad of what it means to be truly Oirish, it’s worth noting that other EU nations do similar.

Britain insists that new citizens must adhere to its values of toleration, democracy, etc., while in Germany multiple choice questions are answered on history, language and culture. There too migrants must fulfil other conditions such as having sufficient command of the German language, no criminal record and an income independent of social welfare. In Portugal you’re requred to have sufficient knowledge of the language and ‘show the existence of an effective link with the national community’. It’s generally the same (with differing years of residency requirement) in Finland, Sweden, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, and Slovakia.

Theo: murdered in 2004

The Dutch however push this to the limit. Their citizenship test is designed to weed out fundamentalists as like it or lump it, Holland professes to have a big problem with migrants (the country has a 1,219,753 muslim population for instance, at last count earlier this year). One guy after all, born and bred in Amsterdam, murdered Dutch artist and ancestor of Vincent Van Gough, Theo Van Gough. So when foreigners apply for Dutch citizenship they have to sit through, among other things, pictures of gay men and lesbians kissing and their reaction to the same sex love is monitored. They only become Dutch citizens if they agree that gay love is acceptable.

Flash forward to the non-rebellious Dystopia of 2016, when IMF bureaucrats regularly appear in Kerrygold butter ads, apartments on Dublin’s quays are forced to sell for €55,000 if unoccupied for longer than three years, Job Agencies are replaced by Internship Houses, the HSE is bought by an American health insurance company which bans all forms of cancer from its policies, FÁS is a souvenir Facebook page and crack cocaine is dispensed free on library cards in areas where unemployment exceeds 92%. The newfangled Citizenship Test is now fully in place and today, for the first time, 498 people will sit through three papers on Irish culture, begrudgery and history, in a ‘Reduced To Sell’ embassy building on Raglan Road. When the stern looking ex National Library archivist blows the fireman’s whistle to begin, there’s a bulk sigh of relief that Question One is such a sinch:

In an Irish stew, would you use two gigot chops or three?

Gone are the lean days where applicants took an oath before a District Court judge during court business and received their certificate by post. Now would-be Irish men and could-be aulones had to make sense of all of Ireland, from the first faux republican graffitis of Dorset Street shutters to the unwashed men sucking seaweed on bar stools on bleak islands off the coast of Cork, where car insurance and television licences no longer exist. Lucky for this lot the lion’s share of the Culture Paper seems very manageable overall:

Name a tasty dark beverage found in most Irish pubs, fridges & security huts.

Under what circumstances would an elderly Irish female use the term: “He has his glue!” and/or “There’ll be wigs on the green!”

Which Sunday Independent journalist won an award for not talking about themselves in every single article for a period of 14 months?

Is it true that Irish males born with carrot red hair are forced to play hurley up to the age of consent?

What does ‘may the road rise with you’ mean?

Was Cost Plus Sofas responsible for the famous Irish economic boom?

Are leprechauns real? [See exam notes on ‘making up truths’. For example, if you consider merchandise available from branches of Carrolls Irish Gifts & Souvenirs to be ‘realistic’ , according to your own unique culture & customs, adjust answer to suit].

Are Jedward real?

Is Penneys the same as Primark?

Is the consumption of Denny sausages considered ‘the norm’ on the morning of a traditional Irish wedding? Would your average Irish bride-to-be still have her hymen intact on this day?

What a pity the two other papers on begrudgery & Irish history were so tricky by comparison. Questions such as: Should farmers continue to illegally lend one another their sheep/cow/pig stock when getting assessed for EU grants? From what year were ‘selfish career women’ blamed on male suicide rates in rural Ireland by male columnists in the media? Approximately how many centuries will it take for Ireland to pay back its private-sector-generated debt? How many terrorists and killers help run the country and get paid for it? In your opinion, is Cromwellian-type violence linked to Limerick gangland’s abysmally low literacy rates? Can you list 14 characters from Tuatha Dé Danann? What is the ratio of smack-warbling heroin addicts on the Liffey boardwalk to sparrow-legged receptionists and wage-cut public servants with alcohol problems? Do you think a Citizenship Test such as the one you’re sitting now is an unnecessary waste of time and resources? How long do you plan on staying in Ireland and did you wipe your feet when you came in the door?

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About junecaldwell

June's short story collection Room Little Darker is published by New Island Books in May 2017. She's a prizewinner of The Moth International Short Story Prize and has been shortlisted and highly commended for many others including: Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, Colm Toíbín International Short Story Award, Sunday Business Post/Penguin short story prize, Lorian Hemingway (USA), RTÉ Guide/Penguin Ireland and Over The Edge New Writer of the Year. In 2010 she received an Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) bursary for fiction. Her work has been showcased at the Italo-Irish Literature Exchange in Nogarole Rocca / Verona (May 2012), Read For The World (June 2012) and Bloomnibus (June 2013) at the Irish Writers' Centre, Galway Pro Choice (Aug 2013), Over the Edge Galway (Dec 2013), Stinging Fly Spring Launch (March 2014), At The Edge, Cavan (May 2014), The Winding Stair Prizewinner's Reading (Sep 2014), One City One Book: DLR Lexicon Barrytown Trilogy reading (April 2015), Hodges Figgis Book Festival (Oct 2015), Bogman's Canon Fiction Disco (Nov 2015, April 2016), Doolin Writers' Weekend (March 2016), Five Lamps Arts Festival (Mar 2016), National Concert Hall: Kevin Barry Recital Room series (April 2016) and the Eastrogen Rising: A Rebel Cabaret. Her creative writing has been published in Woven Tale Press, The Moth, The Stinging Fly, Literary Orphans and Popshot, as well as a non-fiction biography of a Trouble's moll with Gill and MacMillan in 2006. Her short story 'SOMAT' is published in The Long Gaze Back: The Anthology of Irish Women Writers, edited by Sinéad Gleeson/New Island. Journalism: The Gloss, The Guardian, The Observer, Sunday Times, Sunday Life, Sunday Tribune, Sunday Business Post, Sunday Independent, Ireland on Sunday, Irish Independent, as well as a number of women's magazines and trade journals.